Tits, tats, sweeteners, threats and philosophical principles

 Another rebellion comes to naught, as completely unpredicted by the Graun:

A controversial government Brexit bill that breaches international law has safely passed its final House of Commons hurdle, despite continued serious doubts among a number of Conservative MPs about the plan.

As context, if we still need any:

Boris Johnson argued the law-breaking measures were needed to counteract the possibility of the EU responding to a lack of a permanent trade deal in December by effectively blocking goods from entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, an idea critics have said is highly unlikely.

The Gurandia link to the article supporting the view that EC nastiness is 'unlikely' leads to a report from D Boffey, 'Brussels bureau chief', soon to be redundant I imagine:

The prime minister’s argument in favour of the internal market bill is a mixture of truth, untruth and conflation, although there are grounds to criticise the EU’s rather high-handed approach.

To support this:

The negotiations on what goods are deemed “at risk” [ in trade between the mainland and NI] are ongoing. But under the Northern Ireland protocol agreed by Johnson, a failure to agree on it would end in a default position of all goods entering from Great Britain being regarded as “at risk”, and therefore attracting tariffs....The prime minister has said that this would be an “extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol” and that it would “impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea”. In reality, it is simply what was agreed.

So where's the untruth? Boffey seems to be arguing that because it is agreed it is untrue to suspect any  harsh interpretation. There might be more in the charge of 'conflation', especially given what we know about Johnsion's caddish character:

The EU has said the UK has so far failed to provide sufficient details of the so-called sanitary and phytosanitary regime for animal and plant products post-Brexit. The UK government says the EU has ample information. Either way, there is nothing in the internal market bill that would resolve this particular dispute. Critics argue that the prime minister has a habit of not letting facts get in the way of a good story.

These unnamed 'critics' [can they still have dinner parties discussing Lacan in Islington?] seem to be the final arbiters of what is true, untrue  or conflated. 

Meanwhile, those amiable EC negotiators, who only want a fair and reasonable deal have been active elsewhere:

British intelligence about terrorists and other serious criminals would have to be deleted from EU systems if the Brexit trade negotiations were to collapse, a former EU security commissioner has warned. ...prospects for a security deal – not generally thought to be a topic of controversy – were inextricably bound up with the overall negotiations, where there are sticking points about state aid and checks on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. “This is not an area where they [the EU] are envisaging separate arrangements,” King said.

Is this serious? They would delete our information about their terrorists? Is King mixing up his tits and tats?

 

Who is doing the warning again?

Sir Julian King, who was the UK’s last commissioner in Brussels [and so is already redundant] 

Throughout, our skilled negotators are engaged in deep philosophical debate about 'the four freedoms', and  the 'values' and 'principles' invovled. Here:

Britain has offered a three-year transition period for European fishing fleets to allow them to prepare for the post-Brexit changes as part of an 11th-hour deal sweetener.

And here

Boris Johnson has been rebuffed by Brussels after making an eleventh hour attempt to break the Brexit logjam with new proposals on limiting state subsidies to ailing British companies.

According to Brussels sources, the UK’s paper on state aid, the most contentious of the outstanding issues, offered to lay out a series of “principles” on controlling domestic subsidies....But the paper failed to offer appropriate “governance” proposals that would allow Brussels to keep the UK to its pledges, EU sources said.

Looks a bit like there could be some untruth and conflation to me. Surely there will be no problems once we have all agreed? We need a profile of the characters of the Brussel negotiators to reassure us.

Boffey ( again) and Rankin ( normally pretty sound) sum up the other main issue with the balance for which Graun journalism is famed:

The EU has pushed for the UK to accept the bloc’s state aid rules, which do not allow unfair subsidies to be granted.

Who could possibly object to banning 'unfair' subsidies?

 

Liberal weasels try again

Wise words from the Liberals' (remember them?) new leader in the (still?) Lib-supporting Graun:

We lost the Brexit fight – now we must listen to voters, Ed Davey urges Lib Dems 

 

Ed Davey, the new Lib Dem leader, has warned his party that it was “diverted and distracted” by Brexit and must now refocus on voters’ more urgent concerns, as he faces mounting internal demands to formally back rejoining the European Union.

Asked what he would tell ardently pro-EU members concerned about Brexit, he said: “I’d say that I’m a pro-European. And I’d say that we’re a pro-European party. That isn’t changing. And by the way, the other thing we can’t change is parliamentary arithmetic.

“And so what is the challenge now? The challenge is to show that the progressives in British politics are on people’s side.

Obviously by not listening to them while weaselling about Brexit

Pots and kettles...

An example of the tremendously useful flexibility of new petite bourgeois cultural politics in this 

The attorney general, Suella Braverman, has come under fire for calling a fellow female MP “emotional” after she questioned her support for the government’s bid to break international law.

The term, often considered a misogynistic trope in an exchange, drew sharp criticism from the shadow justice secretary and several in the legal profession.

 What was the issue? A particularly offensive one:

Ellie Reeves, Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, had challenged the government’s bid to “disapply” some of the Brexit withdrawal agreement through the internal market bill currently being debated in parliament....Braverman hit back immediately, telling Reeves: “I prefer to take a less emotional approach than the honourable lady.”

Any retaliatory abuse was fully justified, obviously:

Braverman’s response to Reeves was branded “pathetic” by the shadow justice secretary, David Lammy, who said it served to “further undermine the office of the attorney general”.

Just to make it clear to any readers less immersed in the zeitgerist, 'pathetic' is definitely NOT a misogynistic trope

Kent becomes an independent state

Back to the queuing lorries horror: First

A de facto Brexit border is to be introduced for lorry drivers entering Kent to travel on to the EU, Michael Gove has confirmed.

The minister for the Cabinet Office and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster told the Commons that lorry drivers would need a “Kent access permit” to get into the county from 1 January with “police and ANPR cameras [automatic number plate recognition]” enforcing the system.

Under government plans revealed in a leaked document, KAPs will be issued only to drivers who have completed all the paperwork necessary to board a ferry or Eurotunnel train to Calais.

Can't wait for the barbed wire, searchlights and border police. New laws and standards in Kent, regulated by the ECJ?  Really pleased with their trope, the Graun editorial tells us they told us:

The prospect of a Brexit-induced queue of 7,000 lorries at Dover, each one requiring a permit to enter the county of Kent, would once have been dismissed by leave campaigners as baseless fearmongering. Now it is the government’s “reasonable worst-case scenario” for the end of transitional arrangements with the EU on 31 December.

The government’s “check, change, go” campaign, urging businesses to prepare, has been running since July, but inevitably traders’ attention has been focused on the coronavirus pandemic.

Not lobbying for an extension to transition at all, rather, as the Graun puts it

British freight and logistics companies have been pleading with the government to pay more heed to the practical economic implications of Brexit choices that are driven by Eurosceptic dogma....It is impossible for some businesses to prepare fully for new regulatory requirements, because the details depend on the terms of a deal that does not exist.

Poor old businesses cannot prepare for more than one possibility. The Government is evading as usual:

George Eustice, the environment secretary, claimed that “all the work in the world” was being done to prepare on the UK side, but that chaos could not be ruled out as a result of things being “slipshod and disorganised” on the continent.

It's all down to Boris of course:

a prime minister who expects nodding subservience from his cabinet...Mr Johnson is creating borders where there were none, inflicting cost where none was previously levied, erecting barriers, closing doors and calling it freedom. As the moment of implementation nears, the fraud inherent in the whole enterprise is getting harder to conceal.

The Graun seees that as 

[one of many] cynical inversions of the truth

And they may well have a point.

Finally

The economic cost of a no-deal Brexit could be two or three times as bad as the impact of Covid, a report has concluded....Analysis by the London School of Economics and UK in a Changing Europe [bound to be objective then]

In the short term it is “almost certainly correct” [rather weaselly to start] that “the economic impacts of Covid-19 dwarf those of Brexit,” it says, as not even the most pessimistic forecasts suggest the initial fall in output caused by a no-deal could lead to a downturn like that seen in the second quarter of this year...But it concludes that there will be longer term damage to the country’s reputation for ease of doing businesses, with delays due to administrative burdens at ports, constraints on travel and tourism, as well as curbs on immigration and free movement of labour.

Reputation. Funny how it all adds together.

 

Stop Press. There is a good rebuttal of the LSE analysis in Briefings for Brexit

 

T. May apeal to the country-- latest

 After the devastating news that T Blair and J Major are against, the latest hammer blow is that T May also opposes the Bill:

Theresa May has launched a blistering attack on the government’s plan to give itself powers to renege on the special arrangements for Northern Ireland in the Brexit deal....She described the plans as “reckless” and “irresponsible” and said they “risked the integrity of the United Kingdom”, as they would not only tarnish Britain’s reputation globally as an upholder of the law but could contribute to a reunited Ireland....In a strongly worded speech in the House of Commons

The Graun describes the Bill in a rather sympathetic way, oddly:

The bill...is designed to regulate trade within the UK after Brexit,

And even cites:

The former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith said he did “not believe a word” of claims that breaking international law would undermine trust in the UK because, he said, the EU itself broke international law.

Back to the usual blame game with this, however:

Thousands of Britons living in the EU will have their UK bank accounts closed by the end of the year because of the UK’s failure to agree a post-Brexit trade deal.

Not an EU failure, of course. The Graun does note that:

the UK has legislated so that EU banks can continue to provide services for customers in Britain, the EU has not done the same.

 

Let's support an Ireland united as a 'supranational [imaginary] entity'

Three aspects of overall Graun ideology on Brexit today. (er yesterday) First, hard-ball politcial realism:

Donald’s Trump special envoy to Northern Ireland has warned of the risk of creating a hard “border by accident” on the island of Ireland, as Boris Johnson’s newly drafted plan to rewrite the withdrawal agreement was rejected again by the EU.

The comments follow a critical intervention by the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, after the UK government published its internal market bill and admitted it would breach international law. “We can’t allow the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit,” Biden tweeted...The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has also warned that Congress will refuse to ratify any UK-US trade deal that comes before it if the British government fails to abide by the terms of the withdrawal agreement.

Only one side is responsible for this risk, of course:

There are concerns that the failure of the UK to live up to its promise to enforce a regulatory and customs border in the Irish Sea could lead to the need for such checks to occur on the island of Ireland, a position that all sides are determined to avoid.

Those nice concerned, open and disappointed EC bureaucrats

[are now] examining two main options: taking the UK to the European court of justice [ha!]  or continuing the negotiations and then presenting the British government with the choice of dropping the relevant clauses of the internal market bill in order to secure a trade deal or leaving without an agreement [sounds a bit perfidious to me] .

Then there is J Freedland :

Clueless about the US, uninterested in Ireland, Boris Johnson and his team are crashing on to rocks they can’t even see 

[There is a] certain kind of Brexiter, the type who bangs on about “the Anglosphere”. These are folk who couldn’t wait to be shot of the continentals and embrace our true cousins across the Atlantic....That delusion was shattered once more this week, courtesy of a tweet from the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

Biden is well, nice, cultured,as well as right:

Biden, a former chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, has had a decades-long interest in Ireland, anchored in the pride he takes in his own Irish ancestry. His speeches are peppered with the words of Irish poets; last month, he closed out his acceptance address at the Democratic convention by quoting Seamus Heaney. As a teenager, he worked on his stutter by reciting Yeats....on Capitol Hill, the real special relationship is not, as Tory nostalgists imagine, between the US and Britain, but between the US and Ireland.

the Brexiters may know their Frank Underwoods from their Jed Bartlets, but they have long failed to understand that no US-UK trade deal is ever going to happen unless the Irish dimension is resolved to Dublin’s satisfaction.

Gosh, he's got me there Frank Underwood? Jed Bartlet? OK I resign. No -- wait, the Graun has explanatory link to Wikipedia entries for the TV-avoiding members of the Islington set as well):

Fancis Joseph Underwood is a fictional character and the protagonist of the American adaptation of House of Cards...Josiah Edward "Jed" Bartlet is a fictional character from the American television serial drama The West Wing

Classic new petite bourgeoisie -- their cultural capital is both high and low, so they can always maintain superiority: if  mentioning Yeats doesn't make you feel like an imposter, House of Cards will

Underneath is the deepest ignorance of all: the wilful refusal to see the conundrum that Brexit poses. Put simply, if the UK leaves the single market and the customs union, there has to be a meaningful border (and border checks) between the UK and the EU. 

Sorry, but  is it ignorance or wilful refusal? Ignorance in the UK npb sense of revealing one's humble origins in a gaffe? Thank goodness Freedland is able to put it all simply for us. Why didn't we hear this argument before? Or this, using  typical and revealing Graun logic:

the failure to realise that ending the Troubles was possible only because Ireland and the UK were in the same supranational entity – thereby blurring the border between north and south, and allowing those in the north to identify as British or Irish or both.

So that's all it was! As soon as everyone was told by that nice T Blair that they now belonged to a wider supranational identty, [but not the UK, not the Christian community] the IRA and Protestant ultras put down their guns and made common cause Could they not be reunited now by reminding them both of the communal joys of watching West Wing, or supporting the Guardian?

Finally

Why Geoffrey Cox's A Man for All Seasons clip sends Brexit Britain a potent message

It is fascinating to find Sir Geoffrey Cox, the former attorney general, posting on Twitter a scene from Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons to affirm his belief in the sanctity of the law. Since Bolt was a one-time communist, an active supporter of CND and a dramatist who wrote a hagiographic portrait of Lenin in State of Revolution, he and Cox make strange bedfellows

In an attempt to engage the younger readers, this time there is an explainer -- but wouldn't it have been better to refer to a Stormzy track?

Cox’s choice of a clip from the film of A Man for All Seasons is highly pertinent but, to understand it fully, you need to know the context...More says: “This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast and if you cut them down do you think you could really stand upright in the winds that would blow then?” It’s a powerful message for today....[Cox] was speaking sentiments More might have understood....[The film]...started out as a stage play and is only one of many in the 20th century in which the individual is pitted against authority. 

Billington, classically, thinks that the only people wanting to 'respect the law' are people like him, nice, liberal, a bit luvvie. He should talk to the all-knowing Freedland and maybe they could debate the respect for the law in Irish politics.

 

Your law-breaking tonite

 Breaking news (yesterday):

Parliament will be asked to override withdrawal agreement only if Northern Ireland protocol is undermined, says No 10

In its policy paper on Thursday, the government explained that it will ask parliament to support the provisions in the relevant clauses “only in the case of, in our view, the EU being engaged in a material breach of its duties of good faith or other obligations, and thereby undermining the fundamental purpose of the Northern Ireland protocol”...Examples of behaviour prompting the use of the measures included in the internal market bill would include, the government said on Thursday, the EU refusing to grant third-country listing to UK agricultural goods for “manifestly unreasonable or poorly justified reasons”.

Other examples listed include an insistence that GB–NI tariffs and related provision should be “charged in ways that are not related to the real risk of goods entering the EU single market”, as well as an insistence on export declarations for NI goods going to GB.

Under the Northern Ireland protocol, Northern Ireland would continue to enforce EU customs and follow product standards rules to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.

For some, it is not enough. Fuck NI, “I don’t know what my colleagues will do, but as far as I’m concerned this is a matter of principle.”, says Howard. Was he one of m'learned friends in an earlier life?

For dealing with the EU it seems to have been quite effective:

One senior diplomat said the EU had been “distressed and appalled” by the UK’s attempt to unilaterally rewrite the withdrawal agreement, but added that the bloc was determined to continue the talks.

Elsewhere, the Graun wants to tout for custom for yet another repeat. This appeared in the 'News' section! A good way to save a few bob, of course, as you pursue 'open, independent, quality news every day'

We would live to hear from people of European nationalities leaving – or thinking of leaving – the UK 

 

Remain revives

I'm getting behind again, but the book is nearly finished. A few days ago,, a return from the dead, in the Graun

The scale of disruption predicted to hit UK borders post-Brexit is revealed in confidential government documents warning of queues of 7,000 lorries in Kent, and two-day delays to cross into the EU.

A “reasonable worst-case scenario” report, drawn up by the Border and Protocol Delivery Group, forecasts that thousands of passengers could also be forced to wait an extra two hours for Eurostar trains.

The good news is that the queues will no longer before stretch round the world in days (see posts passim):

“It is estimated a maximum queue of 6,500 HGVs may develop in January,” 

Rounding up to 7000 is just good journalism, of course, and Gruanies have never been good with numbers.

Elsewhere, the beloved P Toynbee seems back from hols and generating copy from her old cuttings:

Real life will eventually crash in on Brexit fantasies, but when? How long can people stay in that alternative universe where dreams of sovereignty blot out what’s all around them? The religious down the centuries often inhabited dream-worlds of phantom heavens: Brexit voters can hibernate inside their own virtual reality – but not for ever...Negotiations turned nuclear last week [ie stopped being nicey nicey]

Fear of resurgent Faragists [where?] weighs more heavily than his justice secretary’s threat of resignation, his chief legal civil servant walking out or seething Tory MPs, whose full strength we won’t know until final votes next week. But they are now backed by David Cameron, and four other former prime ministers [which must be the clincher, surely?]...To prefer risking a rekindling of Irish border passions is a wickedness too far. The former attorney general Geoffrey Cox says ministers breaking the law causes “unconscionable” damage to the UK’s international reputation...[more than a legacy of slavery,no doubt]

 One good bit though, if true:

For added irony, the vaunted new Japan free-trade deal commits the UK to tougher state aid restrictions than the EU’s: watch every new trade deal blow away more “sovereignty” fairy dust.

Rejoicing in the crushing power of international monopoly capitlaism becasue it will rebuke Leavers. Then fully back on the Grievance Highway, to provide a very helpful resume of Project Fear:

The motor industry warned on Monday that no deal would cause a £100bn “catastrophe”, as cars are hit with a 10% tariff and vans 22%. No deal would end certifications that allow billions of pounds’ worth of chemical exports to the EU. Financial services are creating new footholds in Amsterdam, Paris or Dublin, ready to take flight with their high-paying, tax-yielding jobs ...A plan for 29 lorry parks speaks for itself of the chaos expected: fresh vegetables will be “blockaded” by Johnson’s own folly. Expect food, medicines and all those essentials stockpiled last time round to be in short supply. [not that they are now, of course]

And support for Labour is rising again, thank goodness, at least with 'a Bristol manufacturer of industrial safety valves with £11m turnover that employs 130 highly skilled staff.', a classic Graun vox pop, whom Toynbee happened to bump into?

Not all are convinced about Starmer, though, including S Jenkins:

Labour has long felt trapped by Brexit. The issue has divided it from much of its working-class support. Starmer now accepts that Brexit is an accomplished fact. But we still do not know where he stands on such key negotiating issues as fishing and state aid to ailing firms, let alone a European single market. He seems frozen by indecision.

Starmer should deploy every conceivable parliamentary device to ensure a trade deal – plotting with minority parties, mobilising the House of Lords, stopping the clock [impossible,surely, once it is ticking]  whatever. Day and night, he should be tearing Johnson’s insurance policy to shreds [ie stopping the 'law-breaking'Bill].

Didn't they try all that and then massively lose an election?

Baudrillard caused Brexit, but Biden will save us

More news of unpleasant yet hopeful confrontation in the Graun:

Tory rebellion widens over Boris Johnson's bill to override Brexit deal

Criticism grows of plan to break international law as EU calls for bill to be dropped

The critics seem to be, naturally enough, a bunch of m'learned friends, irate that politicians should decide things and not them -- or that 'the rule of law be upheld' in the usual terminology. In bewigged pomposity: “Britain is one of the founding fathers of modern democracy and international law and at a time when the rules-based order is eroding, we should be seen to defend it rather than undermine it.”. Stern defenders of the rules include:

Sir Bob Neill, the chair of the justice select committee...Geoffrey Cox, Boris Johnson’s former attorney general... the justice secretary, Robert Buckland...Lord Thomas, the lord chief justice of England and Wales from 2013 to 2017...The Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee,

Heavyweight politicians also joined in:

Former prime ministers Sir John Major and Tony Blair [which should guarantee the Bill's success]... Former Tory leaders Theresa May and Sir Michael Howard...[ditto]...The shadow Cabinet Office minister, Rachel Reeves, confirmed that Labour would also vote against the bill in its current form [unless it revises its pronouns?] ....Meanwhile, there were new calls from Brussels and EU capitals on Sunday for the internal market bill to be dropped [a good sign then].

There is some useful background:

Frost claimed the EU had made it clear there is no guarantee it will add Britain to its list of approved third countries for food imports. But Barnier said it needed details from the UK on its future health standards for food, plant and animal origin products for export, known as sanitary and phytosanitary standards....Johnson claimed that he had been anxious in recent weeks as negotiators believed there was a “serious misunderstanding” about the terms of the withdrawal agreement. He wrote: “We are now hearing that, unless we agree to the EU’s terms, the EU will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol to impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea.” Johnson described the internal market bill as a “legal safety net” to “protect the free flow of goods and services between NI and the rest of the UK”.

EC weasels have been rumbled, I would say. 

For J Harris in the Graun,all this is not sensible power play, but just beastly Tory divisiveness:

For the right, exploiting prejudices is all that counts. The things that used to be avoided are now being actively encouraged

At the heart of power, there used to be a distinction that allowed onlookers to make at least some sense of what was going on. For the most part, a government’s day-to-day business revolved around outwardly serious plans and policies – presented, however cynically, as being of benefit to the public – and responding to events. But, politics being politics, this solid core was inevitably accompanied by much more superficial stuff: distraction, spin, the kind of things Tony Blair once termed “eye-catching initiatives”....

Now that division seems to have crumbled....Obviously, what decisively tipped the UK in this direction was the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

But Harris wants the clock not only to stop ticking but positively to be turned back. More bread and circuses, more KitKat. Or just more subtle, tasteful and nice ones? The beastly Tories seem to offer only 'stunts and decoys', while ' Old conventions about probity can now safely be ignored'. The old conventions that the Graun tells us propped up colonialism, slavery,  racism, sexism and transphobia?

Strangest of all for a Garunista, he rues that ' the sense of policy becoming the servant of emotional and ephemeral factors has only grown'. More like a Garunista, it is all based on Continental philosophy, of the sort eagerly consumed by prejudiced plebs: 'the French theorist Jean Baudrillard contended that the difference between actuality and mere simulation had long since broken down, a notion encapsulated in the postmodern concept of “hyperreality”'. Lacan is now out of favour? Thank God the Graun told me before I embarked on Response to Jean Hyppolite's Commentary on Freud's "Verneinung"

As usual, it is all one struggle for the Graun:

Is there any way to put things the right way up? From the possible arrival of Joe Biden in the White House to the idea that the realities of a no-deal Brexit might finally convince leave voters of their folly, the hope of some kind of restoration of rationality haunts 2020. [Nothing on climate change?] But I would not count on it: those feel like thoughts from the last century, long since buried under a landslide it may now be impossible to dig our way out of.

I can't help asking the quoters of Baudrillard and peddlers of strong, simple,  emotional appeals, a strong, simple and emotional question-- whose f***ing fault is that?

Graun attempts to put the other side and nearly does...

It does seem to be trying to get its act together as a serious newspaper -- probably too late -- by considering some non-Graun views with things like this.

Michael Gove has defended the government’s plan to override parts of its own Brexit deal with the EU, claiming the internal market bill was necessary to protect the territorial integrity of the UK.

He also insisted that the government is acting “within the rule of law” and was behaving in a “constructive and pragmatic” way, despite the Northern Ireland secretary admitting the new legislation would breach international law....

“We’re doing our part – generously – to help protect the EU’s own single market, but we’re clear that what we can’t have, even as we’re doing all that, is the EU disrupting and putting at threat the integrity of the United Kingdom,” Gove said.

“These steps are a safety net, they’re a long-stop in the event – which I don’t believe will come about but we do need to be ready for – that the EU follow through on what some have said they might do, which is in effect to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.”

“But our adherence to the rule of law is clear, and that’s why the attorney general issued a statement earlier this week outlining the way in which all our actions were entirely consistent with the rule of law.”

There is even a small venture into real politics with this:

Britain’s Brexit negotiators believe Downing Street’s plan to break international law, pushing the trade and security negotiations to the brink, may have helped reboot the talks by offering Brussels a reality check about the looming danger of a no-deal outcome...Downing Street believes the row with the EU may ultimately prove to be a welcome disruption to the talks, which had been in deadlock throughout the summer over the most thorny issues of the government’s future domestic subsidy regime and access to British waters for EU fishing fleets.The British negotiating team, led by David Frost, believes EU capitals are freshly focused on the trade and security negotiations

Of course:

Downing Street’s view of a fresh impetus to the negotiation was not echoed by Barnier in a statement issued at the end of the eighth week of negotiations.

And there is still much talk of Tory rebellions, EC revenge, encouragement for dictators  and the like.

 

So not bad, but still a good way from:

information that’s grounded in science and truth, and analysis rooted in authority and integrity. ...fearless investigations and analysis of those with political and commercial power. We can give a voice to the oppressed and neglected, and help bring about a brighter, fairer future.

And still the fundamental unecognised and revealing contradiction between reporting and idealist activism:

We’re determined to provide reporting that helps each of us better understand the world, and take actions that challenge, unite, and inspire change.  

What's the point of all that science and truth stuff if you know the answers already? What grounds the assumption that 'we' will all understand, challenge and act in the same direction? This after years of preaching to us to follow their narrow interests...

 

Fight, go to law or rewrite the past?

Worrying toe-to-toe stuff in el Ghruni

The Brexit talks appear to be on the point of collapse after Britain flatly rejected an EU ultimatum over the government’s plans to break international law by reneging on key parts of the withdrawal agreement.

Germany’s ambassador to the UK, Andreas Michaelis, tweeted: “In more than 30 years as a diplomat I have not experienced such a fast, intentional and profound deterioration of a negotiation. If you believe in partnership between the UK and the EU like I do then don’t accept it.”...Gove said Downing St would not climb down. “I made it perfectly clear to the vice-president of the commission we would not be withdrawing this legislation,”

Barnier plays his familiar old song:

The bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, separately issued a statement at the end of the eighth week of negotiations on a future trade and security deal in which he complained that London had not matched the EU’s willingness to find a compromise on the key sticking points: state aid and access to UK waters for European fishing fleets.

And m'learned friends may be in for a real bonus:

The commission has advised the 27 EU capitals that there are grounds for the bloc to take “legal remedies” through the European court of justice before the end of the transition period, potentially leading to significant fines or trade sanctions.

Elsewhere The Graun does its best to help to maintain a calm unfied front, as usual:

A behind–the–scenes rift has emerged between the government’s top legal advisers over the legality of the decision to bring legislation that overrides the EU withdrawal agreement....The revelation of a backroom disagreement over the ministerial code – which stipulates an “overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law” – could prove particularly damaging to Boris Johnson’s government.

Although, curiously:

Explaining how such a breach could be legally justified, the [leaked] letter explains: “All law officers agree that it is an established principle of international law that a state, acting through its executive government, is obliged to discharge its treaty obligations in good faith. This is, and ought to remain, the key principle in informing the UK’s approach to international relations....Keen [MoJ's spokesperson in the Lords] was vocal in his defence of the government’s position when responding to questions in the Lords about the internal market bill.

“We are not showing scant regard for our treaty obligations,” he said. “We are endeavouring to allow for a contingency that may arise very soon which will require us to ensure that we can discharge our obligations to Northern Ireland.”

He added: “From time to time tensions do occur between domestic legal obligations and international law. It’s not unprecedented for legislation passed by this parliament to cut across obligations undertaken at the level of international law. Domestic legislation does prevail.”

“However in the difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves, the attorney general and solicitor general consider it is important to remember that an established principle of international law is subordinate to the much more fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty.”

Another piece is equally unhelpful to the Grau's straw-clutching:

They [senior UK law officers] also agree that there is a “risky but respectable argument” that legislation could be written to be compatible with article 4 of the withdrawal agreement so that domestic law “takes precedence over article 5 of the protocol and s.7A of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 in particular in circumstances of “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to a diversion of trade”.

On constitutional questions, the law officers concur that “parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass any legislation it sees fit, including legislation which results in the UK contravening its international obligations under treaties or customary, international law....In our view, ministers would not be acting contrary to the constitutional principle of the rule of law in proposing or supporting such legislation. Neither would parliament be acting unconstitutionally in enacting it.”

Further expensive advice includes:

Different readings of the code surface in the letter from the attorney general’s office. “The law fficers [sic] do agree that the [ministerial] code itself does not carry the force of law, is not enforceable in the courts, and does not pose a legal bar to action,” it says.

There is “strong precedent”, they claim, for the UK government passing legislation “in breach of treaty obligations”. They cite the government’s response to the European court of human rights ruling on prisoner voting.  

Not really a lifebelt then.

 O Jones opts for nostalgia and tries to rally the dear dead departed:

[The Government]  that if the airwaves are flooded with Labour’s angry reactions, their opponents can be easily portrayed, once again, as blocking Brexit altogether. They believe that their electoral coalition has little interest in international law. They want to toxify Keir Starmer in so-called red wall seats by portraying him as an aloof, establishment, metropolitan, remainer lawyer.

 Not very difficult I would have thought. Luckily:

Starmer’s team has noted the trap and sidestepped it. “Get on, negotiate, get the deal that was promised,” declares the Labour leader, while his team blames Boris Johnson for reopening the supposedly done Brexit. This seems like sound politics...this is the same dilemma faced by Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, whose efforts to “sidestep” the issue of Brexit, on the basis that the referendum had been lost, were greeted with rather less charity. 

 Jones urges a rethink even if in a 'if-only' mode

Labour’s position of accepting the referendum result and negotiating a closer relationship than that offered by the Conservatives was broadly uncontroversial until the early months of 2018. Underpinning the party’s strategy were some incontrovertible facts: 41 of the top 54 Tory-held target seats Labour needed to win voted for leave..[so. in 2018]...The longer the deadlock went on, the more leading remainers became convinced they did not have to settle for a soft Brexit....

Both factions fed off each other, unleashing a culture war that was not about our relationship to a trading bloc, but about crude remain and leave identities, which divided families, communities and social classes....Such a culture war was poisonous for a leftwing political project founded on an understanding that the real division in society was between the majority and the elite...The Labour leadership was increasingly induced to accommodate them, forcing it to zigzag and perform dizzying U-turns....the party’s grassroots overwhelmingly wanted a new referendum, and Corbyn had been elected as their tribune. The leadership faced being defeated at the 2019 conference if it continued to resist. Combined with the rise of the Liberal Democrats and Greens at Labour’s expense, Corbyn’s closest parliamentary allies – John McDonnell and Diane Abbott – strongly believed Labour had no choice. 

 So now the Owl has crapped on our suit, what should we have done?

[chosen a] clearly defined soft Brexit earlier, using the political capital of its 2017 gains to make a passionate and principled case. The conflict-averse Corbyn [just Corbyn?]  left a vacuum and the stop Brexit movement filled it....We could have accepted the referendum, negotiated a close relationship [KitKat?], and pivoted back to the domestic issues that really matter. Instead, we have a hard-right Tory government with an unassailable majority that bungled the pandemic and has set Britain on course for the hardest Brexit possible.

There is still the oldest option of all, for the Gurd:

No-deal Brexit means food price rises, warns Morrisons

Storage issues could hit cost of fruit and veg as supermarket chain’s profits plunge

Guardian speaks for Thatcher, the Nation, Scotland and International Law

So much in the press. I can hardly keep up. The day job is a bit pressing at the moment as well. Never mind. First this 

Brexit bill criticised as 'eye-watering' breach of international law

Downing Street defends bill after outcry from Brussels, legal experts and some Tory MPs

• Johnson has undermined trust, says EU

 [It is] a move that has shocked Brussels, threatens to provoke a rebellion by Conservative MPs and caused Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to warn there will be “absolutely no chance” of a US-UK trade deal if it presses ahead with the move.

The plans have prompted such concerns that the European commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič will travel to London on Thursday for an “extraordinary” meeting with cabinet minister Michael Gove of the joint committee set up to implement the withdrawal agreement.

Gosh, things must be bad if none other than an EC VP has to travel to London.

At home a powerful coalition seems to be emerging:

Nancy Pelosi [as above]...The veteran Tory MP for North Thanet, Sir Roger Gale, said he would not support the move....Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, said he was disturbed by the plans...Northern Ireland’s most senior judge...Ursula von der Leyen, condemned the bill...Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said he would be registering his “complete opposition”...One Irish source...Catherine Barnard, a professor of European law at Cambridge University, [who probably stands to lose a lot of her subject?]...Steve Peers, a professor of law at the University of Essex [is he Irish?] ...One [Irish?] observer [who] wondered if the attempt to place the powers in Westminster was not “revenge” for the supreme court decision to rule last September that prorogation of parliament was unlawful.

 Most significantly of all:

The former prime minister Sir John Major [not even Irish] said breaking international law would come with a price that could never be recovered.

The Graun editorial has this

The logic is hard to fathom. It makes sense only in the context of a Brexit project that can never be completed to the perfect satisfaction of the Conservative party....the latest stage in the quest for an immaculate separation from Europe. Every vestige of EU influence over the territory of the UK must be purged

Perhaps Mr Johnson did not understand that policy [in the text of WA, which is crystal clear to the Graun editor]  Perhaps he never intended to honour it. Either way, he now wants to legislate a fantasy version of what he wished he had signed into reality.

What's not to understand?  

The Graun abandons logic and sense to climb aboard its hobby horse and set off, huffing and puffing:

It is a sinister constitutional absurdity, quite aside from the bad faith it shows with regard to Brexit negotiations, and the damage it does to the nation’s reputation as a trustworthy trading partner. It depletes any moral authority that the UK might summon as a democratic state criticising the action of authoritarian regimes.

 Even more world-threatening:

That shift repatriates powers from Brussels to Westminster, and the devolved administrations want them to trickle further down to Edinburgh and Cardiff. Mr Johnson does not. On the contrary, the bill reinforces Westminster authority in ways that trample the spirit of devolution and tamper with its legal foundations. Nationalists see it as a power grab [really? Unlike them]

And the answer? Let's pretend we are back in the 19th Century...

Parliament must now limit the rest [of the damage]

And, most telling of all, this from none other than M Kettle:

In her memoirs, Margaret Thatcher identified the rule of law as the foundational underpinning of commercial confidence in any society.... She extended this to upholding the obligations of international treaties too...if that veneration means anything, there is no way those MPs should vote for the United Kingdom internal market bill that Boris Johnson published on Wednesday. ...Johnson and Cummings may prefer to fight the mother of all battles over Brexit because, in the end, that is the reason why this government exists. If so, the many remaining Thatcherites on the Conservative benches should reflect on what that means. For Thatcherism has now been conclusively hijacked by Johnson and Cummings. They will never get it back again.

It's partly personal caddishness, of course. If only they were more like Mrs Thatcher!

Cummings and Johnson, after all, did not get where they are today by respecting either conventions or foreigners....No 10 believes that shifting the political conversation from Covid to Brexit works to its advantage....The clock is ticking in the EU talks [Oh! That's a good new metaphor!]. If Johnson wants a deal, he will feel he has to present it to leavers as a triumph snatched from the EU against the odds....Welcome to Johnson’s and Cummings’ world, in which the government actively seeks disorder and law-breaking

 The clincher that will make even these swine see sense?

a no-deal exit would turbo-charge Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign to take Scotland out of the UK. 

Is she running such a campaign then? Why weren't we told?

Graun seeks foreign aid

More clucking today: Here

Senior Democrats have warned that any attempt by the UK government to backtrack on the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland would jeopardize a future US-UK free trade deal and could hobble bilateral relations across the board if Joe Biden wins the presidency....Biden, an Irish American, is a staunch defender of the Good Friday Agreement...Kim Darroch, former UK ambassador to Washington, said: “You could have a free trade deal, it could even be negotiated by a Republican president and get blocked in the House of Representatives.”

The Graun would surely want to condemn that as an interfernce in domestic affairs -- no, seemingly not

And here

A claim that Boris Johnson decided to breach international law after the EU had threatened to disrupt food exports from Britain to Northern Ireland has been condemned as “fake news”, amid growing outrage over the prime minister’s plans to renege on the withdrawal agreement. 

Liberals realise the value of carrot and stick -- and love

More Grauny thinking aloud as Europe competes with Covid-19. Plebs need persuasion and firm handling as sanyone knows who has run a household:

This, for example is the carrot (eventually):

Team Johnson has always believed one of the mistakes Theresa May made in the drawn-out saga of Brexit negotiations was that despite repeatedly insisting, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, she never convinced the EU27 that she was willing to walk away, because, ultimately, she wasn’t.... the move is likely to be read in Brussels (and among Johnson’s own MPs) as part of the broader context – which is a government ready to play hardball. There are at least some good reasons to think this is partly theatre.

We could all see that, of course , despite efforts like the Graun's

“There’s a sense that the details of the protocol are mind-boggling – there are many competing interpretations,” said one source with knowledge of the government’s Brexit preparations....So part of what the government appears to be doing in the internal markets bill is legislating for its own preferred reading of the deal.

Gove, Johnson and Gisela Stuart – since ennobled [and not before time] – lined up at an election campaign event to tell ex-Labour voters that the ability to swiftly bail out struggling firms would be one of the advantages of leaving the EU.

This is dangerously close to admitting that the electorate was told about, voted for and is behind the move? Are these promises not sacred? Would the Graun prefer another U-turn?

But can't we trust the EC?

Yet Brussels-watchers say there is some flexibility in the EU’s stance on state aid, which is there to be exploited, if only the UK would publish its own proposals.

 All liberals like a good stick to hand too:

The latest Brexit dispute could end up in the European court of justice if it breaches the withdrawal agreement signed by Boris Johnson in January, legal experts have warned....The court can impose a heavy fine on the UK, suspend part of the withdrawal agreement, launch trade wars and impose tariffs or even sanctions on British exports.

One of m'learned remainers says it all depends how you interpret Article 5, which the Graunu helpfully reprints, seemingly designed to identify goods at risk of entering the Republic, and thus the EU from NI

[The EC] wants ministers in London to draw up the list of the goods “at risk” of going on to the republic, thus minimising the disruption in the internal British market....Sources say the EU’s working assumption is that all goods are at risk of going into the republic – even goods on Tesco shelves – because the region is so small.

Carrots and a stick then. That's what these simple Leaver idiots need!

Meanwhile Z Williams tries to rally her own side:

isn’t this sabre-rattling exactly what Boris Johnson always does, just ahead of a major climbdown? Isn’t this exactly what happened, at exactly this point last year: the blaring siren of an imminent no deal, followed by the bromance of Johnson and Leo Varadkar resolving their differences at the last minute? The panicky mood around disintegrating negotiations just doesn’t stand up once you look at the detail: on state aid, the last major stumbling block aside from fish, both sides are willing to compromise. Our prime minister, not being a details man himself, is hoping that his supporters share the same flaw and will take this theatre as fact....[All this]...may give fresh hope to opponents seeking to strategise against their nightmare Brexit

Thus reassured, the issue is one for meetings of the Labour Party in Islington:

How do we use our insights and their shortcomings to our advantage, to better oppose no deal, to forge a better Brexit and to reshape the narrative and the agenda?

It's all about narratives and agendas, as ever. Let's follow this a bit:

opposing [Brexit] is futile [yes -- it's happening] . No amount of sophisticated second-guessing will help us. The reason is not that the ardent Brexiters are cleverer or one step ahead, but rather that the project is oppositional in its DNA....This has always been a pugilistic movement, an attempt to transpose the implacable divisions of the cold war wholesale on to the fresh enemy of Europe. It has never had any interest in compromise, and consequently never had any use for reasoned analysis (or facts, or experts).... It was the behaviour of people for whom Brexit was only ever an instrument of cultural and constitutional discord.

Nothing to do with the pathetic posturing and aggression of graudinistas as the journo branch of the new petitie bourgeoisie

That doesn’t mean it would have foundered without us, by the way; it would have simply manufactured division within its own ranks.

[Time to focus on what] we realised instinctively [ie did not actually say] on 24 June 2016 – if the fundamental purpose of Brexit is to move from a politics of consensus to one of division, opposing Brexit only makes the project stronger.... all of this analysis worked on the assumption that we existed in a good-faith political environment where rational arguments land, and where politicians consider the national interest, the optics and the wealth and wellbeing of the citizens. And even once these assumptions showed themselves to be wrong, we too often thought that pointing that out was a solid argument in itself

So what to do exactly? Let love, harmony and reason break out once more as Guardina readership grows again and people agree to ennobling Emily Maitlis. Well we could start at least with a group hug:

There is a masochistic resignation on the opposition benches, where MPs prove their realism and humility by accepting the inevitability of a Conservative government until 2024. This is strategically mistaken [Labour are going to overturn a majority of 80?] . But, more importantly, it is unpatriotic [see, you silly proles -- we are patriotic too] .  ...The creation of perpetual crisis is the wellspring of this new breed of radical Conservative. It can only be quelled at its source [one strong leader to overcome all the turmoil and restore national unity? Emily Maitlis? ] , rather than lurched at, one catastrophe at a time.